Big Tray-class
The Big Tray-class is a series of large land battleships seen in the Universal Century timeline of the Gundam franchise. Technology & Combat Characteristics Big Tray's were essentially large armored hovercraft with several large cannons mounted on the top deck. These landships were used primarily as heavy artillery platforms and as movable command posts. With its large guns the Big Trays were capable of attacking targets several kilometers away. Although it has a high artillery capability, it is not armed for self-defense and is not suitable for anti-aircraft combat. The powerful hoverjets granted the Big Tray surprising mobility for a vehicle of its size and weight, however it was limited to maneuvering over relatively flat terrain. It was known to be able to travel over water. When the Federation successfully developed mobile suits, it became common for a squad of mobile suits to escort Big Trays into battle. Often several of these mobile suits would ride atop the large flat surface around the bridge of the Big Tray, acting as additional turrets. The Big Tray would serve as a counter for the Principality of Zeon's Dabude-class land battleships. Armaments ;*Large Gun :These weapons were fixed to the front of the unit, underneath the bridge tower. They were either shell-firing cannons or a mega particle cannons, depending on the source material. It is possible that older models used shells, while newer ones used beam weaponry. ;*Triple Gun :These were large caliber shell-firing guns mounted into 3 turrets. Two were mounted to the sides of the battleship and the third was mounted on the back. All three turrets were able to rotate 180 degrees. History Constructed before UC 0079 the Big Tray-class of vehicles were widely used during the One Year War by the Earth Federation Ground Forces. Widely used in all campaigns, they were most commonly seen in Europe during Operation Odessa where a large number of Big Tray-class land battleships were used to bombard the Zeon forces. Several Big Trays were used as decoys for General Revil's Bhatan. One of these Big Tray''s, in the mountains of Lithuania, was destroyed by the Zeon, however thanks to proper planning from Federation mobile suit pilot Captain Matt Healy the Earth Federation did not lose any personnel and managed to destroy an MS-09B Dom and two MS-07B Gouf mobile suits. One ''Big Tray served as a mobile command center for the Earth Federation Forces in South-East Asia. It played a prominent role in the Earth Federation's efforts to push the final remnants of Zeon's Earth Attack Forces off the Earth. It was guarded by several RGM-79(G) GM Sniper mobile suits. A variant called the "Mini Tray" was developed by the Federation, which was essentially a scaled down version of the Big Tray, despite it's smaller size it's firepower still made it a threat. One of these was encountered by the Midnight Fenrir Corps and destroyed. Variants *''Heavy Fork''-class *''Mini Tray''-class Gallery Gmsniperdefend 08th.png Rx-78-1-bigtray.jpg|Prototype Gundams and Big Tray land battleships (background) as seen on Gihren's Greed:The Manace of Axis V Big Tray_MS_0079.png|Big Tray seen in the intro of MS Sensen 0079 Notes and Trivia Reference External Links *Big Tray-class on MAHQ.net ja:ビッグ・トレー級陸戦艇